Bridging the Culture Gap: An Interview with Sharmeen Obaid by Laila Kazmi

Sharmeen Obaid is a journalist and a documentary filmmaker. She was born and raised in Pakistan and has received her higher education in the United States. Her documentary films have been aired on Discovery Times channel and PBS/Frontline World. Her first documentary, Terror’s Children, addresses the plight of Afghan children living in refugee camps in Pakistan. The film won the American Women in Radio and Television Gracie Award and the Overseas Press Club Award this year. Sharmeen’s second documentary, Re-inventing the Taliban, is about the rise of religious fundamentalism in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. That documentary just earned her the Banff Rockie Special Jury Award. Her most recent film is On A Razor’s Edge which aired on PBS Frontline World on March 25th 2004. It is a documentary about the recent peace movement between India and Pakistan.

Interviewer’s Note: The following interview was conducted in May 2004 over a telephone conversation with Sharmeen Obaid who spoke from San Francisco.

Laila Kazmi: Sharmeen, you grew up in Pakistan and you are currently finishing a Masters degree at Stanford University. Are you studying documentary filmmaking in school?
Sharmeen Obaid: Actually, I’ve never formally studied documentary filmmaking. As an undergraduate I did Economics and International Relations. As a graduate, I did a Master’s in International Relations and now I am doing a Masters’ in Journalism. I think that having an International Relations background really helps because you understand how people in other countries live and you see things through their prism. Of course having a Masters in Journalism is essential because it teaches you how to be a good correspondent.

Laila Kazmi: Your films have won many awards in the West. Your very first documentary, Terror’s Children was made for Discovery Times channel. Can you tell us how that came about? Also are your films geared specifically towards western audiences?
Sharmeen Obaid: Yes. I think it is very important for people who come from my part of the world, South Asia, to initiate a dialogue with people who come from this part of the world, the West. And because I am a product of both Pakistan and the United States, in terms of education, I have an understanding of where people come from on both sides.

My first documentary, Terror’s Children, came about while I was in Pakistan doing a story for a Canadian newspaper on Afghan refugee children. I felt that people in the West had no idea about what the conditions were really like for refugees. Unless they see it, it doesn’t leave an impact. Although I had no background in film, I wrote up a proposal which I sent to my college along with about a hundred other media organizations in the US. I got many rejections because I am not a US citizen and because I had no background in films. Luckily the New York Times picked up my pitch and decided to fund the film. My college pitched in as well for my first film. And so by the time it was complete, New York Times and Discovery had merged to form the Discovery Times channel and they premiered my first film on the channel.

I want to bring stories from south Asia that can help educate people in the West. However, they do carry universal messages, and it’s very important to me that people in Pakistan can also see my films. Reinventing the Taliban, for example, questions why a majority of secular Muslims allow a radical minority to define Islam in Pakistan. These are people who don’t want anything to do with “suicide bombers” and “terrorism”, but not enough are standing up and talking about it.

Terror’s Children was shown at the Kara Film Festival, and at Kara in December 2004 I’ll be showing Reinventing the Taliban along with On a Razor’s Edge, a short film about peace between India and Pakistan. I also plan to hold private screenings in Karachi.

Laila Kazmi: So you came up with the idea for your first film?
Sharmeen Obaid: Yes, I came up with the idea. For all three of my films, I’ve come up with the idea.

Laila Kazmi: So, would the ordinary Pakistanis get to see the films? I ask because, as important as the Kara Film Festival maybe, from what I know about it, it has a limited audience. Is that true?
Sharmeen Obaid: It is, it is, unfortunately very limited audience. To get the masses in Pakistan to see the film would be a lot harder because we don’t have too many venues in Pakistan for that. Unless it has been shot on cinema, then you can hire a cinema and have it shown there. However, my films are not shot on 16mm. They’re shot on DV. So the only places I could show them are at private screenings. I would have to rent out the place and sell the tickets, if I were to do that. And of course, that also would mean that I wouldn’t attract the masses. I would attract a certain strata of society which is rather unfortunate in Pakistan.

Laila Kazmi: Terror’s Children is about the difficult conditions and the extreme poverty in which Afghan refugee children are growing up in the camps in Pakistan. How difficult was it getting access to the camp?
Sharmeen Obaid: In the beginning it was pretty hard because they were very suspicious of me. I was a Pakistani. They didn’t view Pakistanis with a lot of trust, especially after 9/11.

In a way, it even helped that I was a woman, as I was seen as perhaps less threatening. They could also see that I had built a careful relationship, during and outside of filming, with the children I was mostly working with. So they allowed me to film in a lot of normally inaccessible areas in the refugee camp.

It was heartbreaking to see these people, especially the children, living in such extreme conditions. It was hard at the end of the day to return home and think: “this is my life and that is theirs”.

Laila Kazmi: If you see the films, both Terror's Children and Re-inventing the Taliban, some of the areas where you filmed including madrasas, political rallies, a gun shop, and some of the areas in the refugee camps – all seem to be places usually closed to women. So, were you ever scared going into some of these places?
Sharmeen Obaid: It was intimidating because I was the only woman over the age of 13 with my face showing. Once or twice a few men stopped me in the refugee camp and asked what I was doing there. They told me that I should wear a burqa (full body veil), and that if I came from a “right” Muslim family I wouldn’t even be working.

That was discomforting because in Pakistan, despite many restrictions, you still have the freedom to move around in cities without wearing a burqa. You can travel freely wearing shalwar kameez; nobody ever questions you. You can drive a car, you can work – you can do lots of things. So looking at the conditions in the refugee camp, I realized then that Afghan culture and Pakistani culture are very different.

Yet when I sat down and talked with the men in the camp, they were actually very considerate. After that conversation I was never bothered. In fact, if they saw somebody who was giving the camera crew any trouble, they would ensure that the person was removed from the vicinity.

Laila Kazmi: In Re-inventing the Taliban which is about the effects of fundamentalism in Northwest Pakistan, you interviewed a few hard-line clerics, how willing were they to talk to you? Did you have to work hard to convince them to be interviewed for the film? How did they react to you, as a woman, asking them questions?
Sharmeen Obaid: The clerics were the most obliging, nicest, most hospitable people I met and worked with. Fun people! They made sure that I ate with them, drank tea with them, they told me anything and everything I wanted to know. They didn’t have any pretensions. Sometimes they weren’t too happy that I was challenging them, but they never stopped me from asking questions and always gave me their own opinion.

Of course, their ideology is very different from the ideology that I would like embraced in Pakistan. But that does not stop me from saying that these people were very obliging and extremely helpful.

Most of these clerics had never encountered a female journalist. Before the interviews, we had long conversations about, say, sport or the weather. I got them comfortable and familiar with me, and that really worked, especially with Maulana Sami-ul-Haq – arguably the most intimidating man in Pakistani politics and in the whole madrasa system. He really took a liking to me. He wanted me to see things his way and I wanted him to see things my way. It made the interviews more lively.

Laila Kazmi: Some Pakistanis have complained that Reinventing the Taliban focuses too much on the fundamentalists and presents Pakistan in a very negative light. How do you respond to that criticism?
Sharmeen Obaid: Reinventing the Taliban is primarily about the rise of Islamic political parties and the impact they are having on people’s rights, so it shows rallies and Islamic fundamentalists. It would have been unfair and absurd to show a modern, carefree Pakistan without any threat from Islamic fundamentalism. I have to make sure that I show a balanced view of what’s happening in Pakistan. And my documentary does show both sides of the country. It shows secular Pakistanis and everyday people – who sing, paint and work, who are educated and vocal, who embrace life.

I do get more criticism from Pakistanis because I am Pakistani, and they don’t expect that from me – whereas they “expect” a foreigner to portray Pakistan negatively. I also point out to them that had anyone else made this film, from any other part of the world, they would have never shown the secular side of the country. The whole one hour would have been about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan without actually showing that there are actually people who sing and paint and work and are educated and vocal.

A Pakistani filmmaker is expected to be loyal to the country, but I am not Pakistan’s PR agent, I’m a journalist who happens to be Pakistani. I also want to hold true to proper journalistic standards and principles.

Laila Kazmi: So, does there also exist a strong movement against the rise of religious fundamentalism in Pakistan?
Sharmeen Obaid: I think there can only be a strong movement against it if average, everyday Pakistanis decide that they want to take a stance but that has not happened yet. Though even among the people in the Northwest, I’ve noticed there have been rumblings about how the MMA is carrying out its business.

On India and Pakistan relationship

Laila Kazmi: Your third documentary is called On A Razor’s Edge. Can you tell me more about that film?
Sharmeen Obaid: Yes, it was early February this year, just before the nuclear scandal broke out in Pakistan. PBS/Frontline decided they wanted a story on Pakistan and my idea was to do something about the peace gesture with India because all the news that comes out of Pakistan is not always positive. Having better relations with India is something that my generation greatly values because we’ve never experienced anything like this. My generation has never seen or heard peace rhetoric with India.

So In early February 2004, I traveled by train from India to Pakistan and spoke with families long separated by political division. I was in Pakistan for basant (kite and colors festival) and met Indian families there who had crossed the border for the first time, really enjoying Pakistan.

I did lots of street interviews where everyone said they wanted peace – even more so in the middle of the nuclear scandal involving Abdul Qadeer Khan, which broke out while I was filming. So I covered that bit as well.

I spoke to some Generals, I spoke with Mirza Aslam Baig. I also spoke with members of the ISI. I spoke with a number of other people across the country. On a Razor’s Edge is basically a 25- minute piece about peace gestures with India and while I was there the nuclear scandal that happened, if that would impact the peace gestures.

Laila Kazmi: Speaking of peace between India and Pakistan, after the recent cricket matches in Pakistan, we in the West read many stories by Indians who went to Pakistan to attend the matches. They wrote about the amazingly warm welcome they received in Pakistan. Their stories seem to just confirm the notion that the ordinary people in Pakistan just want to live in peace with their Indian neighbors.
Sharmeen Obaid: That’s exactly what I found out. In my generation an average Pakistani has never met an average Indian. The borders have been closed for so long, how can we meet each other? This has contributed to so many misconceptions because people believe whatever the politicians feed them.

On Pakistani Film Scene

Laila Kazmi: About the film scene in Pakistan, it seems that there are several new independent filmmakers who are doing very interesting work. Do you think that perhaps the standard of films in Pakistan is improving. I mean, I remember when I was a child in Pakistan, nobody really watched Pakistani films because the quality of films was very low, technically and especially in terms of story and content. Do you feel that is now changing?
Sharmeen Obaid: I think that there is a change. I think that young Pakistanis who would never have thought of making films because of the stigma attached to it have broken that barrier. They have decided to go into the film industry.

In Pakistan, Lollywood is not looked upon with excitement because Lollywood has never created a hit. The actors and actresses are mostly drawn from the red light area and the image of Lollywood is not appealing. That’s why it was never considered to be an honorable profession to be part of Lollywood. Now Independent filmmakers are saying, well we don’t really have to be associated with Lollywood to make films. We can make films and they could be far more successful than any film Lollywood has produced.

In fact, when I make my documentaries, my crew is entirely Pakistani. For all three of my films, I hired young Pakistanis, just out of college who were very eager to make it into films. And it was wonderful because now they are all working for Geo and Indus and I have good relations with them.

Laila Kazmi: Right now you film in Pakistan but you do all the editing back here in the US, is that because of lack of proper technical resources in Pakistan?
Sharmeen Obaid: Yes. We don’t have the technology in Pakistan at all and neither do we have people who understand editing. The quality of television isn’t exactly very high right now. I think it’ll become better. In fact, it is becoming better. Some channels are better than other channels. Still in terms of technical quality, they way edits are done, they way films are shot, it’s not up to the mark. If I were to edit a film in Pakistan, it wouldn’t be shown here in the US because the editing in Pakistan is way behind the editing in US, in terms of equipment and in terms of know-how. People need to have practice on these new machines to understand how to use them.

Laila Kazmi: What do you want your films to say? Why are they important to you?
Sharmeen Obaid: After 9/11, one of the most important things about being a Muslim woman is that we now have the opportunity to tell our story and to do it from our part of the world.

My films try to show a reality that’s largely ignored by Western media. I’m trying to bridge the gap between the image of Pakistan on, say, American television, and what’s actually happening there. What government officials and important people say may be familiar, but my films look beyond that to the unheard voices of ordinary Pakistani citizens and what they want for the future of their country.

Laila Kazmi: So what are you working on for your next project?
Sharmeen Obaid: I am developing a project in Saudi Arabia. I am not sure how it will turn out because I have just started developing it. In any case, I will be doing project in the Arab world now. I am also hosting a show twice a month on the Discovery Times channel called ‘World Wire.’ It is show about documentary films from around the world.

Laila Kazmi: Sharmeen, thank you for talking with?
Sharmeen Obaid:Thank you

An excerpt of this interview was first published in openDemocracy.net, an online global magazine of politics and culture.